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Image, Perception, Packaging and Domain Names
"Somewhere out on that horizon
Faraway from the neon sky
I know there must be somethin' better..." -- The Eagles
Back in 1979, âThe Warriorsâ was a movie that struck a chord. A band of inner city kids from Coney Island, framed for a crime they didn't commit and doggedly pursued by rivals trying to settle the score, as they make their way home. I hear they are remaking this film with an LA backdrop for release in 2008. An underdog story who's plot-line resonates 30 years later...
I see some parallels to the domain business in this movie. To be fair, my wife tells me that I see parallels to the domain business in everything. According to her, I could look into my bowl of Cheerios and see domain names in those little, tiny Oâs.
The business of buying, developing and monetizing âgenericâ domain names is one of the oldest and most wholesome on the Internet. Yet like our protagonist movie heroes, the foundational elements of the net (domain names) are often unfairly maligned. The âlegitimate webâ apparently starts on Sandhill Road, where profitless Web2.0 mash-ups combine existing web services (fancy logos, Ajax, Ruby on rails) in order to repackage them for a âflipâ to a greater corporate fool.
We live in a time where the worthless is hailed as âlegitimate', while the truly valuable and legitimate are often shouted down as unseemly fringe plays. Itâs an interesting dynamic - partly driven by misunderstanding, partly by jealousy, partly by a less than glamorous history. In the end, I believe that generic domain names will be redeemed as the priceless gems which they are and that the âlight of truthâ will shine down to expose the flimsy Web1.0 underpinnings of much of this Web2.0 smoke. Many Web2.0 coâs focused on dislodging large and lazy wallets are not so much acquired for their product as their people (or out of competitive fear). Call it: âHeadhunting on the expensiveâ, with a twist of âkeep-awayâ.
Reality it seems, is often framed by image, perception and packaging.
Cnet CNET for example, is a respected billion dollar corporation built on a foundation of unfairly maligned assets. In the mid 1990âs CNET acquired many generic names such as News.com and Search.com, paying first generation name flippers $5,000 or $10,000 for the privilege. I have heard second-hand stories from the purchaserâs perspective - the sellers of that era thought they had won the lottery taking âthat kind of moneyâ from CNET. What would CNN or FOX pay for a name like News.com in 2007? What could you or I build there in 3 hours? How quickly could ten full time college kids harvesting web news clippings unseat Drudge Report if they owned an anchor name with bombastic type-in traffic flow like News.com?
Before you say âWait, CNET is a content company, people visit their network for great writing and infoâ, consider: CNET got a huge boost in traffic (select 3 yr chart) in 2005 when it wild-carded their com.com domain name. By activating the wild-card code, CNET consciously enabled a Microsoft browser error which funnels slow resolving traffic to âdomainname.com.comâ. If you own the name com.com, you own a catalyst to thousands of type-in error-traffic visits. A large tranche of CNETâs traffic comes from their com.com and from great generic domain names such as Search.com or News.com, which bring highly targeted visits through the turnstiles. It is âthat free traffic' which acts as a primer to draw people to their content. Without com.com or their other names, I do not think CNET would be as interesting or relevant a company today.
Pg Like CNET, Proctor and Gamble were actively acquiring domain names in the mid 1990âs. In addition to acquiring the names of their brands (Cheer.com, Tide.com), P&G loaded up on thousands of generic words and phrases which describe the things they hoped to sell one day. They had CookingOil.com, RazorBlades.com etc etc.. While they abandoned many of those generics in the dot-com bust, somebody inside that organization was a first-class domainer, with terrific instincts. They were way ahead of their time. I would love to meet that individual one day.
Although P&G and CNET have roots as aggressive domain investors, you would never hear anyone on Slashdot unfairly (and incorrectly) malign these great companies as âSquattersâ for assembling an admirable portfolio of generic domain names. Yet unfortunately that doesnât hold true when the owner is a smaller co, private individual or investor. The double standard is striking and silly.
In recent years, companies such as Marchex, Demand Media and Reinvent have stepped forward as the next generation of developers. Those folks are executing on bigger visions, taking the CNET model and the Netshops model, fanning it out to many smaller verticals and expanding that exponentially. While this kind of effort takes software and time, itâs happening right before our eyes. Parking is giving way to content. The advanced versions of parking sites are indiscernible from full fledged content sites. In fact they âareâ content. That dynamic is going to accelerate dramatically in the years ahead.
If domain name traffic didnât work the way we all know it does, most domainers would have all gone broke and Google would have closed Adsense for Domains (AFD). They donât do that, because Google understands how important this channel is to their bottom line and as a CNET-style traffic primer for Google's search engine pump. One day the majority of the tech-world will begin to understand that too. All traffic, (even Googleâs and Microsoftâs) originates in the address bar. Some day people will have that "Ah ha!" moment as they come to fathom that generic defensible domain names garner consistent and perpetual type in traffic, for nothing more than the keyword-weight or gravity of the words which make up the domain. Techizens will realize that valuable domain names have less to do with âbrandsâ and more to do with generic words and phrases, which people explore outside of the search engine framework.
I am looking forward to that day. In the mean time domainers of all stripes and colors will have to work hard to speak against fallacies, correct inaccurate perceptions, highlight the unassailable worth of our industry, as we package our image and perception; on our way home to Coney Island.
Great Resource For ALL Domainers And The Source Of This Article Is At: Frank Schilling's Blog
"Somewhere out on that horizon
Faraway from the neon sky
I know there must be somethin' better..." -- The Eagles
Back in 1979, âThe Warriorsâ was a movie that struck a chord. A band of inner city kids from Coney Island, framed for a crime they didn't commit and doggedly pursued by rivals trying to settle the score, as they make their way home. I hear they are remaking this film with an LA backdrop for release in 2008. An underdog story who's plot-line resonates 30 years later...
I see some parallels to the domain business in this movie. To be fair, my wife tells me that I see parallels to the domain business in everything. According to her, I could look into my bowl of Cheerios and see domain names in those little, tiny Oâs.
The business of buying, developing and monetizing âgenericâ domain names is one of the oldest and most wholesome on the Internet. Yet like our protagonist movie heroes, the foundational elements of the net (domain names) are often unfairly maligned. The âlegitimate webâ apparently starts on Sandhill Road, where profitless Web2.0 mash-ups combine existing web services (fancy logos, Ajax, Ruby on rails) in order to repackage them for a âflipâ to a greater corporate fool.
We live in a time where the worthless is hailed as âlegitimate', while the truly valuable and legitimate are often shouted down as unseemly fringe plays. Itâs an interesting dynamic - partly driven by misunderstanding, partly by jealousy, partly by a less than glamorous history. In the end, I believe that generic domain names will be redeemed as the priceless gems which they are and that the âlight of truthâ will shine down to expose the flimsy Web1.0 underpinnings of much of this Web2.0 smoke. Many Web2.0 coâs focused on dislodging large and lazy wallets are not so much acquired for their product as their people (or out of competitive fear). Call it: âHeadhunting on the expensiveâ, with a twist of âkeep-awayâ.
Reality it seems, is often framed by image, perception and packaging.
Cnet CNET for example, is a respected billion dollar corporation built on a foundation of unfairly maligned assets. In the mid 1990âs CNET acquired many generic names such as News.com and Search.com, paying first generation name flippers $5,000 or $10,000 for the privilege. I have heard second-hand stories from the purchaserâs perspective - the sellers of that era thought they had won the lottery taking âthat kind of moneyâ from CNET. What would CNN or FOX pay for a name like News.com in 2007? What could you or I build there in 3 hours? How quickly could ten full time college kids harvesting web news clippings unseat Drudge Report if they owned an anchor name with bombastic type-in traffic flow like News.com?
Before you say âWait, CNET is a content company, people visit their network for great writing and infoâ, consider: CNET got a huge boost in traffic (select 3 yr chart) in 2005 when it wild-carded their com.com domain name. By activating the wild-card code, CNET consciously enabled a Microsoft browser error which funnels slow resolving traffic to âdomainname.com.comâ. If you own the name com.com, you own a catalyst to thousands of type-in error-traffic visits. A large tranche of CNETâs traffic comes from their com.com and from great generic domain names such as Search.com or News.com, which bring highly targeted visits through the turnstiles. It is âthat free traffic' which acts as a primer to draw people to their content. Without com.com or their other names, I do not think CNET would be as interesting or relevant a company today.
Pg Like CNET, Proctor and Gamble were actively acquiring domain names in the mid 1990âs. In addition to acquiring the names of their brands (Cheer.com, Tide.com), P&G loaded up on thousands of generic words and phrases which describe the things they hoped to sell one day. They had CookingOil.com, RazorBlades.com etc etc.. While they abandoned many of those generics in the dot-com bust, somebody inside that organization was a first-class domainer, with terrific instincts. They were way ahead of their time. I would love to meet that individual one day.
Although P&G and CNET have roots as aggressive domain investors, you would never hear anyone on Slashdot unfairly (and incorrectly) malign these great companies as âSquattersâ for assembling an admirable portfolio of generic domain names. Yet unfortunately that doesnât hold true when the owner is a smaller co, private individual or investor. The double standard is striking and silly.
In recent years, companies such as Marchex, Demand Media and Reinvent have stepped forward as the next generation of developers. Those folks are executing on bigger visions, taking the CNET model and the Netshops model, fanning it out to many smaller verticals and expanding that exponentially. While this kind of effort takes software and time, itâs happening right before our eyes. Parking is giving way to content. The advanced versions of parking sites are indiscernible from full fledged content sites. In fact they âareâ content. That dynamic is going to accelerate dramatically in the years ahead.
If domain name traffic didnât work the way we all know it does, most domainers would have all gone broke and Google would have closed Adsense for Domains (AFD). They donât do that, because Google understands how important this channel is to their bottom line and as a CNET-style traffic primer for Google's search engine pump. One day the majority of the tech-world will begin to understand that too. All traffic, (even Googleâs and Microsoftâs) originates in the address bar. Some day people will have that "Ah ha!" moment as they come to fathom that generic defensible domain names garner consistent and perpetual type in traffic, for nothing more than the keyword-weight or gravity of the words which make up the domain. Techizens will realize that valuable domain names have less to do with âbrandsâ and more to do with generic words and phrases, which people explore outside of the search engine framework.
I am looking forward to that day. In the mean time domainers of all stripes and colors will have to work hard to speak against fallacies, correct inaccurate perceptions, highlight the unassailable worth of our industry, as we package our image and perception; on our way home to Coney Island.
Great Resource For ALL Domainers And The Source Of This Article Is At: Frank Schilling's Blog
